Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/530

 people of Europe, who began to acquire some taste for an elegance in living unknown to their ancestors, or despised by them. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the commerce of Europe was almost entirely in the hands of the Italians, more commonly known in these ages by the name of Lombards. Companies or societies of Lombard merchants settled in every different kingdom, and were taken under the immediate protection of the several governments, with the enjoyment of extensive privileges and immunities. The operation of the ancient barbarous laws concerning strangers were suspended with respect to them; and they became the carriers, the manufacturers, and the bankers of all Europe."

The commercial policy of the Venetian republic frequently varied, and though generally protective and sometimes strictly prohibitory, the most perfect freedom was in many instances allowed to foreign merchants to encourage them to make Venice the chief depôt for the supply of produce and manufactures to the markets of Europe. By the decrees of the Grand Council, during the latter half of the thirteenth century, when Venice had reached the zenith of wealth and splendour, her merchants were allowed to import freely from the Levant, from Marseilles, and from other ports of France, produce and manufactures of every kind, provided they were warehoused in the markets of the republic; while they had equal freedom in the export of their own